1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to musical instrument training systems. More specifically, the invention relates to systems for facilitating instruction of musicians in playing a stringed musical instrument such as a guitar and in learning related styles, techniques and theory.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, it has been the general practice to employ a variety of automated training aids designed to help students of stringed musical instruments learn particular execution skills such as fingering, strumming, plucking, etc. For example, visual training aids that diagrammatically show a guitar student particular fingering patterns and the corresponding musical staff diagrams have been available for a number of years. Special visual/audio training systems have also been used in the past. These systems permit a student to see a display of fingering diagrams and, simultaneously, to hear related prerecorded instructions, notes or cords.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,495, granted Sep. 1, 1981 to Roof, discloses a prior art visual guitar training device. The Roof guitar has a first array of lights embedded in its fingerboard and a second array of lights mounted near the sounding hole. Each of the fingerboard lights is located near different finger positions. When energized, the fingerboard lights act as visual fingering indicators by displaying predetermined left-hand fingering patterns directly on the fingerboard. The lights in the second array indicate the proper strings to be strummed, plucked, picked or otherwise played with the right hand. A manual chord-select switch that is also mounted on the Roof guitar permits the student musician to select predetermined musical chords from a limited set of chords. The manual switches are used to control the light arrays so that visual fingering patterns and right-hand instructions of the selected chord are indicated by the lights. Although this and similar systems have served the purpose they have not proved entirely satisfactory primarily because the information provided to the student is only visual and the number of different fingering patterns is limited to a small number of switch positions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,005, granted Apr. 10, 1990 to Shaffer et al., is another visual guitar training device. The Shaffer et al. patent discloses a fingering display that also includes an array of lights embedded in a guitar fingerboard. A number of electrical switches are manually operable by the musician to select a desired note. For each of the notes selected, a light display is activated that shows all of the possible fingering positions for that note. If a scale or chord is selected, then all of the fingering positions for all of the notes of the entire scale or chord are displayed. Like the Roof device, the Shaffer et al. training device provides only visual information to the user. Although the amount of information available in this device is greater than what is available in the Roof device, the amount of information is still quite limited.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,848, granted Dec. 20, 1988 to Blum, Jr., shows a prior art visual/audio guitar training system. This system is made up of an electric guitar and a number of electronic components. The guitar includes a fingerboard having an array of lights imbedded therein. The lights are electrically connected to a processing circuit contained in one of the electronic components. A two-track cassette containing audio signals on one track and light-control signals on the other track is played by another component that includes a conventional two-channel cassette player. The audio signals from the player are outputted by one channel output to a loudspeaker component to play music and/or instructions. Simultaneously, the light-control signals are transmitted via the other channel output to the processing circuit where they are processed and transmitted to the guitar fingerboard. The light-control signals selectively energize the lights to display particular fingering patterns of notes, chords, etc. corresponding to the music and/or instructions being played by the loudspeaker. Additionally, a conventional electric guitar output is transmitted from the guitar pickup to the loudspeaker so that the musical results of the student's playing may also be heard. In this system, the student can hear audio information while viewing corresponding visual fingering information and listening to the guitar output.
From these prior art examples, it can be seen that there has been a long recognized need for improved stringed-instrument training systems. Ideally, such systems would be capable of providing the student musician with instructional information that is both visual and audio and corresponds to a wide variety of musical styles and techniques that are presented via musical notes, scales, chords, melodies, compositions, etc.; would have the capability of providing the musician with extensive visual left-hand and right-hand information in substantially a single viewing area; would be compatible with conventional electronic musical storage and playback devices; would permit the student to easily select small musical segments from larger pieces for concentrated training; would be simple in construction and would be dependable in operation. The present invention fulfills this need.